So… IFC 2013 is approaching. Any authors participate in this or not?
- u.
I’m not. I might play some of the games once it’s over, but nothing else.
I will not partecipate but can’t wait to play.
This is a relativity matter: when coding, the last month was tooooooo damn fast. Now, it’s toooo damn slow.
I should have been, but real life interrupted my progress (damn you real life!) so it’s looking like Spring Thing for me.
I’m in.
Same here! However, it might be a different game we enter!
Funny how when someone wins the IF Comp, they stop entering!
I suppose I had my -long- farewell speech somewhere around here almost a year ago [emote]:)[/emote]
All the other authors must be busy bugfixing or worried about showing their hands. I’m entering! Looking forward to it.
Like many others, my game didn’t “gel” in time. Probably do something for Spring Thing 2014, though. Good luck to the IFComp authors! [emote]:mrgreen:[/emote]
As said above, maybe some writers are cramming to get that last feature or narrative bit in.
Or others got it all done two weeks ago and are just relaxing and above the fray and all and not just afraid of showing their hands but laughing at the people with stuff still to do!
I suppose we could look at the Inform/TADS subboard to see who’s the most likely.
I was registered for the comp, and was working furiously on the ultimate “my dirty apartment game / zombie apocalypse / on-the-rails text dump adventure”. I was working for months on this mother. This game had it all. Since I’ve decided to abandon the game, I’m going to leave the idea, below, for anyone who cares to read it.
The main enemies of this abandoned project were dust bunnies that infect people with a zombie virus when inhaled. Once infected, people would never leave the couch. They would just stare at a box of flashing lights and noise, their glassy, zombified eyes unblinking. Every so often, the zombie would click the remote, or rummage sightlessly in a bag of potato chips, but that was the only sign of unlife.
And, at the same time, the dust bunnies were increasing. This was the whole twist of the game. The dust bunnies were infecting people with the zombie virus so that they would not clean their messy apartments, and dirt is the spawn in which the xenophobic dust bunnies grew.
I added a sort of Men in Black meets the Ghost Busters division of the Merry Maids that the player could call upon for help. This division wore sunglasses to separate them from the standard Merry Maids. These sunglasses would help them hone in on the dust bunnies carrying the virus. Then, with a shocking twist that Shyamalan would be proud of, the game shattered the fourth wall, and possibly the fifth wall of space and time, by asking if you too had dust bunnies in your house. The game then told you to look around.
There were so many times when play testing (no beta testers needed, since I’m so good) where I would reach this scene of unremitting horror, and I would slowly turn around in my chair, and then see a DUST BUNNY ON THE FLOOR! The shocking twist was that, as you played the game, your own room was growing dirtier. To solve the game, you were given a number for the secret division of the Merry Maids, which was actually just the real number for the Merry Maids.
You were then supposed to physically call that number and ask for Agent Turkey Feather, who was actually the only male member of the Merry Maids. He was also a Native American and had the power of shape changing; a sacred gift passed onto him by his grandfather, a legendary medicine man. Agent Turkey Feather could turn into a turkey, thereby picking up all the dust bunnies with his feathery coat. He would then leap into a bathtub full of water, which is a dust bunny’s kryptonite, and that house would be cleansed. The end.
Or so you thought. The moment agent Turkey Feather resumed his human form, the head dust bunny and ringleader, having seen the destruction of all his comrades, would attack, infecting Turkey Feather with the virus. He then turned into a hundred story giant turkey that began stomping the nearest big city that resembled New York, which was strikingly generic, because I’ve never been to New York.
Using all of the power of text based weaponry, you had to shoot agent Turkey Feather’s giant turkey legs with a flamethrower, roasting them. This was a strange moment for the character, as he was both attracted and repelled from the smell of roasting turkey, knowing the real identity of the giant monster, but unable to stop his mouth from watering from the delicious roast turkey smell!
Then you had to fire text bullets into his eyes, which glowed with a supernatural, ghostly fire, and then blast the head dust bunny, which would crawl from his nose at the moment of Turkey Feather’s imminent death. By shooting the final dust bunny, the menace was ultimately defeated.
Then, in a heart felt moment, as agent Turkey Feather, now returned to his natural form, lay dying in your arms, you learn that he was in fact your long lost brother, and before he died, he passed the turkey gift to you, and you took his name, and his place, to prevent this from ever happening again. In an odd twist, none of the characters, poorly implemented as they were, ever noticed the difference, and assumed agent Turkey Feather had returned from a job well done. You realize this because their stock responses never change.
Anyway, I know that by posting this I can no longer release this game for any future comp. This is okay, since I’ve chosen to abandon this game and instead write a good one for the Spring Thing 2014 comp, a game that isn’t so railroady and / or stupid. (Really, I’m excited to see the games coming for 2013. Good luck to everyone, and I can’t wait to play the games!)
Alright, guys. Thanks for the interesting replies.
Heh. 3 days left… let’s see what we’ll get… [emote];)[/emote]
- u.
Sorry, but…deadline’s tonight. Just so you know. Not month’s end.
My mistake. Sorry.
- u.
Every rule has a exception! Anyway, he hasn’t entered since!
Graham Nelson won in 1996 (The Meteor, The Stone, and a Long Glass of Sherbet) and reentered in 1997 (The Tempest).
Andrew Plotkin (A Change in the Weather) and Magnuss Ollson (Uncle Zebulon’s Will) both won the first year (there were separate Inform and TADS divisions). Both have reentered (zarf with “Lists and Lists” and “Shade”, Magnus with Aayela).
Jon Ingold won in 2001 with All Roads, the entered Til Death Makes a Monk Fish out of me in 2002.
Jason Devlin won in 2005 with Vespers, then entered Legion in 2006.
zarf also entered “Cold Iron” two years ago. And Ryan Veeder won with “Taco Fiction” two years ago and has entered two games this year (one a collaboration with Emily Boegheim).
He also entered “Hunter, in Darkness” in 1999.